President Donald Trump hailed Brendan Carr as a “warrior for free speech” when he tapped him to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the independent agency that regulates the broadcast television industry and other platforms.
Carr has lived up to the warrior moniker. Since he took the job, Carr has launched a wave of investigations against leading media corporations and criticized some for perceived liberal bias.
He appears to have scored his biggest win yet Wednesday with ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show from the airwaves just hours after he blasted Kimmel for his comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“We’re not done yet,” Carr said Thursday on CNBC as Kimmel’s defenders and the FCC’s critics accused him of waging a crackdown on free speech in America.
The chairman of the FCC doesn’t typically attract the spotlight, but Carr has frequently made headlines. He has taken such prominent names as CBS News and The New York Times task, and his office has launched formal reviews of the “big three” broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — as well as NPR and PBS.
“I think this is unprecedented,” said Craig Aaron, a co-chief executive of Free Press, a nonprofit organization that advocates against corporate monopolies in media. “I think there’s a lot of people who have been in power or been in the White House who would, in the past, like to bend and abuse the power of the FCC, to bend the will of the media that covers them and the comedians that make fun of them — but they’ve never dared to go this far.”
Carr, 46, known for wearing a gold-colored pin modeled on Trump’s profile, was a lawyer in private practice before he joined the FCC in 2012 as a staff attorney. He later was an adviser to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Trump appointed Carr to a Republican seat on the commission in 2017, during his first term, before he elevated him to the top job.
In the intervening years, Carr had raised his profile inside the Republican Party and the wider conservative ecosystem. He wrote a chapter about the FCC for the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” policy document — better known as Project 2025.
“The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” Carr wrote in the opening to his chapter.
Trump has had long-running grievances with the media, which he has routinely characterized as “fake” and an “enemy of the people.” Trump has sued various news organizations, having most recently filed a $15 billion defamation suit against the Times for articles questioning his business success.
“President Trump took on the legacy national media,” Carr said July 24 on X. “He smashed the facade that they — and their Hollywood and New York execs — get to control the narrative. President Trump is now stacking up the wins with more to come.”
Carr’s aggressive moves come during a period of immense technological and cultural transition for the traditional media as it confronts the rise of generative artificial intelligence, growing competition from foreign-owned platforms such as TikTok and the decline of broadcast and cable television viewing.
The media industry has also rapidly consolidated around a handful of big corporate players — giving Carr more influence — as the national political culture has become more fractured and polarized. Carr’s FCC, which regulates television and radio stations, wireless communications and telephone and broadband services, has found fault with corporations that have both news and entertainment divisions.
Carr’s latest salvo came Wednesday, when he described Kimmel’s on-air comments about Kirk’s murder investigation as “the sickest conduct possible” and said the FCC could revoke ABC affiliates’ licenses as punishment.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said in an interview on conservative commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
In his opening monologue Monday, Kimmel expressed condolences to the Kirk family but criticized Republicans for their reaction to his killing. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said.
Authorities have charged Tyler Robinson, 22, with murder. Officials said Robinson grew up in a conservative household in Utah but later became influenced by “leftist ideology.” Robinson’s mother told investigators that “over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” according to charging documents.
Carr told Johnson that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people.”
